[Korean Textbook Review] 빈도별 토픽 (중급)

The long awaited review!

Or has it been so long that you have forgotten about this book?

I don’t blame you. I myself was this closeto writing this book off as another “over-hyped up” and useless TOPIK book. Can’t blame me too, since it literally translates to “Complete TOPIK with one book, TOPIK grammar points according to frequency (intermediate)” which is totally the type of title I hate in my Korean textbooks.

BUT

I’m now totally in love with the book and I can’t wait to get my hands on the advanced version.

Yeah, that good! *nods*

Basically the book is like a grammar dictionary (for intermediate level) of some sorts, but just that the explanation section is expanded, made more clear with loads of examples and detailed conjugation patterns + sample questions / exercises (that are damn helpful) AND a few sample TOPIK questions where this grammar point was tested.

Picture speaks a thousand words 😛

Explanation Section

This book wins hands down for the most detailed AND easy to understand explanation on 더니 I’ve ever seen. Enough said. Go buy the book now hahahahaha.

Seriously, 더니 was one of the most difficult grammar points (in my opinion) and I always confused it with 았/었더니. So if you have the same problems, go buy the book. 😛

Each grammar explanation starts off with the meaning, followed by a short two-liner dialogue featuring the grammar point. This is followed by 5 -6 example sentences (so many!) and I love that they have this section 자세히 알아 봅시다 where they tell you how to conjugate the grammar point as well as things you should look out for / nuances of the grammar structure / how it can be used etc

I like it that they provide both the right and wrong examples, so you can clearly see in what cases you can / cannot use the structure.

Eg. some grammar structures requires the front and back clause to have the same 주어 (topic) or maybe this grammar structure can be followed only by present tense and not past.

Continuing with the example of 았/었더니 and 더니, the book also includes a nifty comparison table of the two very similar (yet different) grammar point! 😀

Damn. awesome.

Exercises

Useful exercises that learners will do. With answers.

How good can it get?

Sample TOPIK questions

After every few grammar structures, there will be this consolidation section whereby you have a series of TOPIK questions featuring the grammar point, so you can have a sense of how these structures are tested in the exam.

Overall, a damn good book to order and great if you can order the 3 levels at one go! Will be very very helpful to tackle the grammar points! Even as an advanced learner, I learnt loads / revised loads from this intermediate book!

What I like:

Everything?

Good structure

Best explanations I’ve seen

Useful exercises

Good paper quality

What can be improved?

perfect.

If I want to nitpick then I’ll say that this book may not be suitable for those who are used to having some English in their explanation of grammar points. Then again if you are at the intermediate level you should be able to understand it.

Ready to buy this book? Let me help you by giving you the link to purchase now >>>> TwoChois.com

In case you still don’t know (which means you are new to this blog :P), TwoChois.com is a comprehensive online Korean bookstore that ships internationally and their site is in English. So you don’t have to struggle with all the payment system and what not in Korean sites. I believe the site works with Chrome too. 😀

Hangukdrama

Seoullyu

19 February, 2014 at 1:16 AM

Ah, so sad that the explanations are in Korean 🙁 I mean, I know most of the topik 1 and 2 grammar points already, but my vocabulary is very limited at the same time.
I should stop drooling at this book since I already have 2 intermediate books with English explanations, anyway.